Abstract

Overabundant native species can have a significant cascading effect on other components of wildlife, and those that deplete other species, often promoted by anthropogenic change to vegetation cover and habitat, are called reverse keystone species. Birds in the genus Manorina are widely reported as being such species, and in highly disturbed or fragmented environments, and some intact environments, noisy miners Manorina melanocephala can have a strong negative effect on small passerine species via hyper-aggressive mobbing. The tropical savannas of northern Australia consist of largely unmodified woodlands, and two species of Manorina occur naturally in this region: the noisy miner and the yellow-throated miner Manorina flavigula. Therefore, what effect do these species have on bird assemblage in predominantly continuous habitats, relative to other typical determinants of avifauna assemblage such as vegetation structure? We used data collected from bird surveys at 511 sites across northern Queensland (179 noisy miner M. melanocephala sites, 332 yellow-throated miner M. flavigula sites) between 1998 and 2010. We examined the variation in bird composition at each site due to increasing abundance of Manorina spp. using uni- and multivariate techniques. We found total bird richness was significantly lower in sites where noisy and yellow-throated miner abundances were highest, and passerine species seemed most affected. For species, 45 species varied significantly in abundance with increasing miner numbers, and the overall effect of yellow-throated miners on other birds seemed more pronounced. However, vegetation structure was generally an equal or more important predictor of avifauna richness and abundance. We conclude that despite the superficially intact nature of northern Australian woodlands, pastoral intensification or poor land management might create disturbances that facilitate increases in the abundance of Manorina, causing localized overabundance and a compounding negative effect on other native bird species.